The best kind of training is the kind that leaves you completely and utterly shattered.

"To just break yourself down until you're basically crawling and crying -- it's a good feeling," says Amy Dombroski, laughing as she describes it. "And then you build on that."

Dombroski, of Boulder, is a professional cyclist, and, apparently, a glutton for punishment. It works for her: Last season she won under-23 national titles in road cycling and mountain biking, and she's won the under-23 cyclocross nationals three times.

"She's a competitive person, and she's still really young, too," said Dombroski's coach, Ben Ollett, who is based in Golden. "Sometimes I have to remind myself that she's only 22. She has a good head on her shoulders, she's mature and she potentially has a lot of good years ahead of her."

Dombroski started cycling after a second knee injury, from a crash while training for Alpine ski racing.

"You hear about these skiers with injuries," she said. "After the second one, I'm like, I'm only 18 and I've had two knee injuries. What am I going to do when I grow up?"

When the second injury sidelined her, she moved to Boulder. Her brother, Dan Dombroski, was already living here -- and racing bikes. Doctors told her cycling would be good, so Amy went out for a spin. And she kept going.

"It hooked me really quickly, it was ridiculous," she said. "And my brother was a good racer, and I was seeing the team he was on, and I was like, 'I want that.'"

Full-bore

Dan knew she couldn't be held back.

"I tried to make it, 'OK Amy, just go ride for an hour, just go have fun,'" he said. "And I think that lasted for a week."

After two weeks, Amy wanted workouts, a training plan.

"That's just the way she is," Dan Dombroski said. "From Day 1, it was right into it. It was, 'I'm no longer a ski racer, now I'm a cyclist.'"

She's just as aggressive about racing as training, said pro cyclist and former teammate Rebecca Much, of Boulder.

"Some people who are just out there and they're fit, they end up riding well," Much said. "But Amy races well. She tries to be on the attack, she's always looking for opportunities."

Ski academy

Dombroski grew up in Vermont and attended a ski-academy high school, where she says she learned to be disciplined and motivated. After high school, she moved to Steamboat Springs to ski race. The crash ended that, but the mentality easily transferred to cycling.

"Amy's really motivated, and she's got really high standards for herself, which I think are both important," said Ollett, her coach.

"When she's on the start line, she looks around and says, 'I'm going to win this race,' even when she's got no business winning the race," Dan Dombroski said.

It's her all-in nature, he said. When she first started riding into the foothills around Boulder, she would scream downhill without touching the brakes, he said.

"There were a few times that I literally thought she was going to die," he said.

Much said when she was going pro, the business side -- like scraping together sponsorships, landing a spot on the right team, promoting yourself -- took a toll. But she's watched Dombroski do it with grace.

"Now she's racing with the best U.S. program for mountain biking, arguably one of the best off-road women's teams in the world," Much said.

Racing 'easy'

This year, Dombroski is racing for the LUNA Chix pro team. She's focusing on mountain biking through the spring and summer to prep for cyclocross -- which has become her specialty -- in the fall and winter.

"Sponsorship is the hardest part of this job," Dombroski said. "The racing's the easy part."

When Dombroski went to Europe over the winter to compete in the World Cyclocross Championships (she was the only athlete invited from Boulder), the need for team help, such as a manager and a mechanic, was even more obvious.

The weather's bad, so you need a hot drink and coat at the end, and your bike gets trashed, she said. Though it's only a 40-minute effort, you need multiple bikes and shoes.

"It's every little percentage that you can do right to get the end result," Dombroski said.

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